Tag Archives: graffiti

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France

Dumbed Down By Foreign Actors

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Dumbed Down By Foreign Actors
Graffiti on a wall along a Paris sidewalk

Dumbed Down By Foreign Actors. Paris, France. August 8, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Graffiti on a wall along a Paris sidewalk

When traveling it pretty quickly becomes apparent that graffiti is a pretty universal thing. The amount may vary, but is probably as much a function of how quickly it is cleaned up as it is of the amount of it that is produced. (In some cities, both in the US and Europe, it is pretty clear that no one has bothered to remove it for a long time.) Broadly speaking, it comes in several types. The personal scrawls, or “tags,” seem pretty similar just about everywhere, and I rarely share them. (They also seem like the lowest form of graffiti, basically just a “look at me” or “see what I can get away with” kind of thing.) A second sort is more art/icon oriented and not particularly about text. (My “Je suis bleu” photograph from Le Marias includes such material.) It may or may not be political. A third type includes text messages — though some of the “art” graffiti may fit here, too — seems more overtly political and delivers some message, though the meaning may not always be clear.

I saw these “Dumbed Down By Foreign Actors” scrawls in quite few places in Paris. This one is in Montmartre. I’m not certain what it means, and a quick search didn’t provide any clear answers: is it literally about actors from foreign countries, or is it about (e.g. political) “actors,” or something else? I photographed this example as much for the surroundings as for the text itself. The old wall, painted (and partially re-painted) pink, the barred square area (not actually a window), and the interruption of the power box all are visually interesting to me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

This Is Jess

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This Is Jess
Door with graffiti and stickers

This Is Jess. New York City. July 28, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Door with graffiti and stickers

I truly don’t remember this photograph at all! Sometimes when doing street photograph (in this case at the start of five weeks or what was largely street photography) I photograph quickly and then almost forget quite a few of the photographs as I move on to the next thing, trusting that my ideas about the subject will come back when I see the photograph again as I do my post processing. In this case, no such luck!

I don’t usually photograph graffiti — in fact I used to make it my policy to almost never post graffiti or to disfigure tags that the photographs might contain. But in this case there may be enough in the scene to convince me to let it go. The layers of time and culture in this photograph are easy to overlook, but when you stop to think about it they are quite amazing. I’m sure that this wall and old door have stood for a long time, likely created by and for people who would have little concept of how the surroundings have evolved. The “stuff” on the door includes its own kinds of diversity, ranging from informal scrawls to bits of paper that were created with the intention of affixing them to place like this. And on the left we have the bright colors of  the edge of a sign in (I presume) a Chinese language, itself visually contrasting with yet connecting to the newer writings on the green door.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Broken Glass, Spray-Painted Wall

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Broken Glass, Spray-Painted Wall
A shattered glass window and a spray-painted brick wall

Broken Glass, Spray-Painted Wall. Brooklyn, New York. December 21, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A shattered glass window and a spray-painted brick wall

This is another small and complex street vignette, found on a wall along a street in Brooklyn, New York while walking around making photographs and looking for a place to eat. This section of wall was covered with a lot of street art, layers of contributions from a large group of people over some period of time, no doubt.

There’s not a whole lot for me to write about this one, except that the juxtaposition of broken glass, a single clean vertical line, and the abstract shapes and colors on the right caught my attention. There appears to be some piece of paper behind the fractured glass, and it looks like it may hold some message, but the meaning remains unclear.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Graffiti Covered Wall

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Graffiti Covered Wall
A small portion of a colorful graffiti covered wall, Brooklyn

Graffiti Covered Wall. Brooklyn, New York. December 21, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small portion of a colorful graffiti covered wall, Brooklyn

I used to have a firm policy of virtually never photographing graffiti, and when I couldn’t avoid it I would remove or modify it in post so as to not be part of the sharing that might encourage the sort of graffiti that is really simple vandalism. I still avoid photographing simple “tags” in most cases, especially when they offer little more than the evidence that some anonymous person wrote on a wall. I also have this nagging feeling that photographing graffiti-ridden cityscapes can too easily become a street photography cliché.

However, I’ve become more open to the idea of finding and photographing the accumulative juxtapositions of layers of drawing, painting, posters, and weathering that show up on some urban walls. That’s my way of explaining why I stopped to photograph this Brooklyn wall, moving in close to find compositions among the colors, lines, and shapes that have built up over time and which have been revealed as time has weathered away later layers.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.